VVDD_5V: 5V power input/output. When the external device’s power is greater than the MicroUSB's the external device is charging the board otherwise the board powers the external device. The input range is 4.7V ~ 5.6V

Windows utility for flashing Debian image. Under Linux users can use "dd"

5.3.2 Comparison of Linux-3.4.y and Linux-4.x.y

Our Linux-3.4 is provided by Allwinner. Allwinner has done a lot of customization work which on one hand contains many features and functions but on the other hand incurs overheat issues. If your application needs to use VPU or GPU you need to use the 3.4 kernel based ROM and use a heat sink together with your board.

Our Linux-4.14 is based on the mainline kernel. We will keep this kernel with the latest one released by Linus Torvalds. This kernel is stable and doesn't generate heat that much. If your application doesn't need to use VPU or GPU we recommend you to use this kernel.

5.3.3 Linux

5.3.3.1 Boot from TF

FriendlyCore / Debian / Ubuntu are all based on a same Linux distribution and their installation methods are the same.

Extract the Linux image and win32diskimager.rar files. Insert a TF card(at least 8G) into a Windows PC and run the win32diskimager utility as administrator. On the utility's main window select your TF card's drive, the wanted image file and click on "write" to start flashing the TF card.

Insert this card into your board's BOOT slot and power on (with a 5V/2A power source). If the PWR LED is on and the STAT LED is blinking this indicates your board has successfully booted.

6 Work with FriendlyCore

6.1 Introduction

FriendlyCore is a light Linux system without X-windows, based on ubuntu core, It uses the Qt-Embedded's GUI and is popular in industrial and enterprise applications.

Besides the regular Ubuntu core's features our FriendlyCore has the following additional features:

6.2 FriendlyCore's User Accounts

If your board is connected to an HDMI monitor you need to use a USB mouse and keyboard.

If you want to do kernel development you need to use a serial communication board, ie a PSU-ONECOM board, which will

allow you to operate the board via a serial terminal.Here is a setup where we connect a board to a PC via the PSU-ONECOM and you can power on your board from either the PSU-ONECOM or its MicroUSB:
You can use a USB to Serial conversion board too.
Make sure you use a 5V/2A power to power your board from its MicroUSB port:

FriendlyCore User Accounts:

Non-root User:

User Name: pi
Password: pi

Root:

User Name: root
Password: fa

The system is automatically logged in as "pi". You can do "sudo npi-config" to disable auto login.

Update packages

$ sudoapt-get update

6.3 Configure System with npi-config

The npi-config is a commandline utility which can be used to initialize system configurations such as user password, system language, time zone, Hostname, SSH switch , Auto login and etc. Type the following command to run this utility.

6.5 Setup Program to AutoRun

6.6 Extend TF Card's Section

When FriendlyCore is loaded the TF card's section will be automatically extended.You can check the section's size by running the following command:

$ df-h

6.7 WiFi

For either an SD WiFi or a USB WiFi you can connect it to your board in the same way. The APXX series WiFi chips are SD WiFi chips. By default FriendlyElec's system supports most popular USB WiFi modules. Here is a list of the USB WiFi modules we tested:

Index

Model

1

RTL8188CUS/8188EU 802.11n WLAN Adapter

2

RT2070 Wireless Adapter

3

RT2870/RT3070 Wireless Adapter

4

RTL8192CU Wireless Adapter

5

mi WiFi mt7601

You can use the NetworkManager utility to manage network. You can run "nmcli" in the commandline utility to start it. Here are the commands to start a WiFi connection:

Change to root

$ su root

Check device list

$ nmcli dev

Note: if the status of a device is "unmanaged" it means that device cannot be accessed by NetworkManager. To make it accessed you need to clear the settings under "/etc/network/interfaces" and reboot your system.

Start WiFi

$ nmcli r wifi on

Scan Surrounding WiFi Sources

$ nmcli dev wifi

Connect to a WiFi Source

$ nmcli dev wifi connect "SSID" password "PASSWORD" ifname wlan0

The "SSID" and "PASSWORD" need to be replaced with your actual SSID and password.If you have multiple WiFi devices you need to specify the one you want to connect to a WiFi source with iface
If a connection succeeds it will be automatically setup on next system reboot.

If your USB WiFi module doesn't work most likely your system doesn't have its driver. For a Debian system you can get a driver from Debian-WiFi and install it on your system. For a Ubuntu system you can install a driver by running the following commands:

$ apt-get install linux-firmware

In general all WiFi drivers are located at the "/lib/firmware" directory.

6.8 Ethernet Connection

If a board is connected to a network via Ethernet before it is powered on it will automatically obtain an IP with DHCP activated after it is powered up. If you want to set up a static IP refer to: Use NetworkManager to configure network settings。

The above messages indicate that "/dev/video0" is camera's device node.The mjpg-streamer application is an open source video steam server. After it is successfully started the following messages will be popped up:

"ir-keytable -t" is used to check whether the receiver receives infrared signals. You can use a remote control to send infrared signals to the receiver. If it works you will see similar messages as follows:

6.16 Access GPIO Pins/Wirings with WiringNP

The wiringPi library was initially developed by Gordon Henderson in C. It contains libraries to access GPIO, I2C, SPI, UART, PWM and etc. The wiringPi library contains various libraries, header files and a commandline utility:gpio. The gpio utility can be used to read and write GPIO pins.
FriendlyElec integrated this utility in FriendlyCore system allowing users to easily access GPIO pins. For more details refer to WiringNP WiringNP

6.17 Run Qt Demo

7 Make Your Own FriendlyCore

7.1 Use Mainline BSP

The NanoPi NEO has gotten support for kernel Linux-4.x.y with Ubuntu Core 16.04. For more details about how to use mainline u-boot and Linux-4.x.y refer to :Mainline U-boot & Linux

7.2 Use Allwinner's BSP

7.2.1 Preparations

Visit this link download link and enter the "sources/nanopi-H3-bsp" directory and download all the source code.Use the 7-zip utility to extract it and a lichee directory and an Android directory will be generated.You can check that by running the following command:

$ ls ./
android lichee

Or you can get it from our github:

$ git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/h3_lichee.git lichee

Note: "lichee" is the project name named by Allwinner for its CPU's source code which contains the source code of U-boot, Linux kernel and various scripts.

7.2.2 Install Cross Compiler

Visit this site download link, enter the "toolchain" directory, download the cross compiler "gcc-linaro-arm.tar.xz" and copy it to the "lichee/brandy/toochain/" directory.

7.2.3 Compile lichee Source Code

Compilation of the H3's BSP source code must be done under a PC running a 64-bit Linux.The following cases were tested on Ubuntu-14.04 LTS-64bit:

After this compilation succeeds a u-boot, Linux kernel and kernel modules will be generated.
Note: the lichee directory contains a cross-compiler we have setup. When the build.sh script runs it will automatically call this cross-compiler.
Type the following command to update the U-boot on the MicroSD card:

$ ./fuse_uboot.sh /dev/sdx

Note: you need to replace "/dev/sdx" with the device name in your system.
The boot.img and kernel modules are under the "linux-3.4/output" directory. You can copy the new boot.img file to your MicroSD card's boot partition.

7.2.4 Compile U-boot

Note:you need to compile the whole lichee directory before you can compile U-boot individually.

$ cd lichee/fa_tools/
$ ./build.sh -b nanopi-neo -p linux -t u-boot

Type the following command to update the U-boot on the MicroSD card:

$ cd lichee/fa_tools/
$ ./fuse.sh -d/dev/sdX -p linux -t u-boot

Note: you need to replace "/dev/sdx" with the device name in your system.

7.2.5 Compile Linux Kernel

Note:you need to compile the whole lichee directory before you can compile Linux kernel individually.
If you want to compile the Linux kernel run the following command:

$ cd lichee/fa_tools/
$ ./build.sh -b nanopi-neo -p linux -t kernel

After the compilation is done a boot.img and its kernel modules will be generated under "linux-3.4/output".

7.2.6 Clean Source Code

$ cd lichee/fa_tools/
$ ./build.sh -b nanopi-neo -p linux -t clean

8 3D Printing Files

9 Other OS Support

9.1 DietPi_NanoPiNEO-armv7-(Jessie)

DietPi is an extremely lightweight Debian Jessie OS. Its image file starts at 400MB and nearly 3x lighter than 'Raspbian Lite'.It is pre-installed with DietPi-RAMLog. These features enable users to get the best performance of a device.
The following steps are for reference only. FriendlyElec doesn't provide technical support for them.
Installation guide:

Extract the package and use the win32diskimager to write it to a MicroSD card under Windows.

Insert this MicroSD card to your NanoPi NEO and power up.

Username:root , Password: dietpi

9.2 Armbian

Armbian releases Armbian_5.20_Nanopineo_Debian_jessie_3.4.112 and Armbian_5.20_Nanopineo_Ubuntu_xenial_3.4.112 for the NanoPi NEO. You can refer to its home page for more details.
home page: http://www.armbian.com/nanopi-neo/

9.3 Android

This Android system is an Android4.4.2 variant.
FriendlyARM doesn't provide technical support for it.

Download image files and utilities

Visit this download link and enter the "unofficail-ROMs" to download the nanopi-neo-android.img.zip image file, HDDLLF.4.40 and HDDLLF(under the "tools" directory).

Make Android Installation Card

1. On a Windows PC run the HDDLLF.4.40 utility as administrator. Insert a TF card(at least 4G) into this PC and format it. After formatting is done take out the TF card;
2. Insert it into the PC again and format it with Windows internal format utility to format it to FAT32. After this formatting is done take out the card;
3. Insert the TF card you made in the previous step into a Windows PC and run the PhoenixCard utility as administrator. On the utility's main window select your TF card's drive, the wanted image file and click on "write" to start flashing the TF card.
Note: none of the above steps should be missed otherwise the TF card you made may not work.

Boot Android

Insert this installation card into your NanoPi NEO, power on the board and you will be able to work with it
The password for "root" or "fa" is "fa"

This Android supports these WiFi cards: rtl8188etv and rt8188eus.

10 Connect External Modules to NEO

10.1 DIY NAS Server with 1-bay NAS Dock & NEO

The 1-bay NAS Dock is an expansion board which can be used to connect an external hard disk to a NanoPi NEO.It uses JSM568 USB3.0 to SATA IC and communicates with a NanoPi NEO via USB interface. It works with a 2.5" SATA hard disk.It uses TI's DC-DC chipset to convert a 12V input to 5V. It has a power switch for users to turn on/off the device.It supports an onboard RTC battery. FriendlyElec migrated mainline Linux-4.x.y kernel and Debian-Jessie with OpenMediaVault. Together with FriendlyElec's customized aluminum case you can quickly assemble a storage server. Here is a hardware setup :1-bay_NAS_Dock

10.2 Connect Python Programmable NanoHat OLED to NEO

The NanoHat OLED module is a small and cute monochrome OLED module with low power consumption. It has three user buttons. We provide its driver's source code and a user friendly shell interface on which you can check system information and status.A customized aluminum case is made for it. You cannot miss this lovely utility! Here is a hardware setup:NanoHat OLED

10.3 Connect Python Programmable NanoHat Motor to NEO

The NanoHat Motor module can drive four 5V PWM steering motors and four 12V DC motors or four 5V PWM steering motors and two 12V four-wire step motors.Here is a hardware setup: NanoHat Motor

10.4 Connect NanoHat PCM5102A to NEO

10.5 Connect Arduino Compatible UNO Dock to NEO

The UNO Dock module is an Arduino board compatible with Arduino UNO and works with Arduino programs.You can use Arduino IDE to run all Arduino programs on the Dock.It also exposes the NanoPi NEO's pins.It converts 12V power input to 5V/2A output.You can search for various code samples from Ubuntu's ecosystem and run on the Dock. These features make it a powerful platform for IOT projects and cloud related applications. Here is a hardware setup:UNO Dock for NanoPi NEO v1.0

10.6 Connect Power Dock to NEO

The Power Dock for NanoPi NEO is a high efficiency power conversion module. It provides stable and reliable power source. Here is a hardware setup:Power Dock for NanoPi NEO

10.7 Connect NanoHat Proto to NEO

The NanoHat Proto is an expansion board which exposes NEO's various pins.It has an onboard EEPROM for data storage.Here is a hardware setup:NanoHat Proto

10.8 Connect Matrix - 2'8 SPI Key TFT to NanoPi NEO

The Matrix-2'8_SPI_Key_TFT module is a 2.8" TFT LCD with resistive touch. It uses the ST7789S IC and XPT2046 resistive touch IC. It has SPI interface and three configurable user keys.Here is its wiki page Matrix - 2'8 SPI Key TFT